Few people have experienced as many migrations in the course of their ancient history as the Armenians. Wherever they have immigrated to, such as to the United States, they have retained their cultural identity, despite the numerous hardships they have endured as a result of assimilation in a foreign country. The Diaspora of the Armenians largely began when the "Young Turk" government of the Ottoman Empire massacred over 1.5 million Armenians between the years 1915 and 1923, scattering what eventually became over a half a million to the United States. In addition, the influence of Protestant missionaries, who stressed education in America, also encouraged men to immigrate to the States in the 19th Century. The Armenian Americans have endured fighting off numerous stereotypes, such as being called a "yellow race," and job shortages over the years. Nonetheless, they have produced many noble men in the arts, such as writer William Saroyan, and have popularized oriental rugs and vine crops.
The Christian Armenians have, throughout the course of their history, known very to well what migration means. In 1653, a planter named Edward Diggs, considered to be the first Armenian in America, brought "George the Armenian" and an associate all the way from Smyrna, hoping to establish a native silk factory. His closest friends gave 4,000 pounds of tobacco to him, attempting to lure him to stay in the country.
Like the Puritans who founded the Mass. Bay Colony, the first Armenians to settle in New England came for religious reasons of faith. These Armenians had been converted to Protestantism, by the American missionaries who encouraged some Armenians to pursue their studies in American universities in the 1830s. Some of these Protestant students met with such success in the New World that they chose to stay. A young scholar, Christopher Der Seropian, introduced the yearbook at Yale University, and he later invented the green and black dyes still used on American paper currency. Divided between longing for their homeland and the excitement of living in a rapidly growing America, some returned to staff churches and schools back in Armenia, while others remained, encouraging their fellow men to follow the path of success and liberty.
The Armenian Genocide, the main reason to immigrate, was a calculated attempt to exterminate all Armenians from the face of the earth. During the 15th century, the Armenians were categorized within the Empire as distinct millets, in which they were permitted freedom of worship. The ruling Turks used the millets as a form of segregation, locking Armenians out of mainstream society who had made large fortunes as merchants and bankers. The Armenians eventually had become an internal threat too immense to be ignored; Genocide became the answer. To this day, the Turkish government denies that there was an Armenian Genocide. Armenians all over the world commemorate this great tragedy on April 24, because it was on that day in 1915 when 300 Armenian leaders, writers and professionals in Istanbul were gathered, deported and killed. Over 5,000 of the poorest Armenians were butchered in the streets and in their homes. Armenians were called from their homes, told they would be relocated and then marched off to concentration camps in the desert between Jerablus and Der-el Zor. The authorities, in Trabizon on the Black Sea coast, loaded Armenians on barges and sank them out at sea. The small percentage that managed to escape, fled to neighboring countries as Lebanon, Syria, Iran and especially to the United States.
Upon landing at Ellis Island, the daring young men and women who had immigrated to the United States knew nothing of America except for what they had heard from fellow countrymen. Few had any guarantee of employment, mainly because they could not speak English. As a result, they made initial contacts with friends and relatives, as they joined to create a community; they needed each other in this strange land. The costs of the journey were so great that most immigrants arrived with only a small sum in their possession. Many of these immigrants dreamed of owning their farms in America. Some of them got their chance in the unclaimed Californian San Joaquin Valley.
The new industries ideally suited the large wave of Armenian immigrants. The Hood Rubber Company of Watertown, MA attracted hundreds of Armenians, and shoe factories and metalworking plants in Boston also became havens for new arrivals. The tasks themselves were often boring and repetitive. Many reported feeling like "extensions of the quickmoving, active machines they operated.1" Employees toiled more than 50 hours per week, sometimes as many as 70, in order to earn a $9 paycheck. However, a lifetime of adversity and the need for money to send to loved ones overseas gave Armenians both the ability and cause to work extremely hard. Vartan Malcolm, an Armenian historian, claimed that "years of oppression and struggle for existence has made them accustomed to hard work.2" Statistics compiled in 1904 show that the average yearly earning of Armenian industrial workers in Massachusetts exceeded the average for other recent immigrant groups.
Job shortages in the Northeast sent thousands of Armenian Americans to the cities of the Midwest, which allegedly offered better wages and working conditions. During the economic slump of 1894, some Armenian newcomers resorted to bribing factory foremen for jobs, a practice reminiscent of corruption in the old country. When unions went on strike, management sometimes hired experienced Armenians to find newly arrived countrymen to replace the strikers. Some even damaged their reputation further by occasionally acting as scabs or strikebreakers.
The upcoming generations made several contributions in America while trying to retain an identity. A particular contribution is the introduction and popularization of oriental rugs. The first dealer was Hagop Bogigian, a student of the Protestant missionaries of Kharpert, who in 1881 found success when his first customer, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, spread the word to friends about his carpet establishment. Within a couple of years, he was selling imported Persian rugs to Boston's upper class. Armenians also made their own contribution to the rising of vine crops in the West. Malcolm Markarian was the first to successfully market native-grown figs, and Kirkor Arakelian became "the melon king of America."
The ways of the New World, such as unchaperoned dating, mystified the first generation Armenians, as parents reacted quickly to signs of assimilation. Mothers sought to make their living places as Armenian as possible. Women played the most vital role in transmitting the culture to the next generation and in administrating church affairs and religious and language schools. The old-country tradition of arranged marriages continued in the new land; however, only during the first generation did it last, as men with good prospects and money in the bank were considered far more appealing as mates. Churches also helped satisfy the Armenian Americans' desire to preserve their native culture. Charles Mahakian said in 1929 that "the youth attend church not so much for religious reasons as for social reasons.3" It was the Armenian church that kept their ancient ancestors united during the periods of war and outrage.
For years, the Armenians have had to deal with numerous stereotypes. For the past 75 years, Armenians everywhere have had to cope with a prevailing stereotype of Armenians as "Turk-haters." Another form of prejudice faced by Armenian Americans today is the rug merchant stereotype, based on their domination of the oriental carpet industry. Prejudice has led many immigrants to shorten or change their names: Karnig Elmasian became Carl Sivas. Nativism, a belief that only members of the "old stock" of America could be genuine citizens, endangered the efforts of Armenians to achieve naturalized status. In 1909, according to an official of the Bureau of Naturalization, Armenians belonged to the "yellow race," and as such were ineligible for citizenship. One way for Armenians to escape bigotry was to adopt U.S. citizenship; its benefits included the right to vote, and it solved a pile of legal problems.
Despite all the stereotypes, many brave Armenian men made it to fame. The most renowned and inspirational of these men is the enchanting and versatile writer, William Saroyan. Some of his best autobiographical sketches prevail the concept of nationalism, especially Armenian nationalism, in the wake of such horrid events as the Genocide and two destructive World Wars. Like many American writers of his time, his work suffered from the spotlight of worldfame, while some of his later writings won wide praise, most notably the novel The Human Comedy. When he died in 1981, he asked that half of his ashes be buried in Armenia and the other half in his native Fresno.
The Armenians in America continue to thrive and redefine themselves. Renewed immigration should ward off further loss of traditional ways and the tendency of the new immigrants to live together ensured that some ethnic communities will grow for years to come. For Armenian Americans, the Genocide adds up to more than a historical tragedy; it remains the shaping event of their lives, and the reason they came to fashion a new life on a new continent. To ask them to just forget is to ask them to forget who they are: American and Armenian.
This is a picture of my mother, Gülnar, when she was nine years old.
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1Waldstreicher, David. The Armenian Americans. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989: 39.
2 Malcolm, M. Vartan. The Armenian in America. Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1919.
3 Waldstreicher, David. The Armenian Americans. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989: 61.
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Malcolm, M. Vartan. The Armenian in America. Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1919.
Novello, Adriano et al. The Armenians. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1986.
Waldstreicher, David. The Armenian Americans. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989.
Walker, Christopher. Armenia :The Survival of a Nation. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980.
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